There was a time when the Institute of Contemporary Arts featured contemporary music, but in recent years it has become more of a "venue", with a programme of indie pop and rock acts. The Brighton-based Quantic Soul Orchestra, an 11-piece soul-funk outfit, make the most of the ICA's sticky-floored ambience. They exemplify an interesting current phenomenon - the big live band spun off a DJ-led venture. Other examples include Herbaliser, Sidestepper, Gotan Project and Netherlands-based New Cool Collective. Like the excellent NCC, the QSO avoid samples, loops or laptops; their act is as sweaty and limb-powered as any half-decent dance band, with a meaty horn section, a hard-working rhythm team and front-persons Russell Porter and Alice Russell. Like function gigsters, they play cover versions. Their set includes songs by D'Angelo, 4 Hero and Kitty Winter (the quirky club classic New Morning).

So if the dance scene is dead, maybe this is a way forward, coaxing life from the smoking ashes of its funeral pyre while providing gainful employment for musicians. Yet if such bands are to wrest triumph from the death of dance they'll have to play with a little more style - and I don't mean smarter threads. Sure, the QSO work hard to entertain, but they need more flair and more feel - the sense of musicians really locking together under one groove. QSO albums tend to be studio-bound, dominated by the talents of producer/ multi-instrumentalist Will Holland, and don't sound like the work of a regular playing unit. But neither did tonight's gig. If the QSO is to reach out and do more than trigger favourable responses to the audience's favourite vinyl, they'll have to come up with a band sound that's genuinely their own.